International
weekends; September 6th, October 11th, November 15th,
March 28th. Blank Saturdays that acted as the equivalent of wasted
Bank Holiday Saturdays for the unapologetic supporter of the professional game,
ignorant and unmoved by the purity of the grassroots. Now they stretch from
Friday to Monday, with irregular times and incomprehensible television
scheduling like a distasteful miniature close season break. Switzerland versus
England moved to a Monday night for Sky coverage. Beyond laughable.
However,
some good may have come from it. James Doe, not John, an arriviste follower of
Queens Park Rangers, inspired by a pre-season trip to Tavistock, set up Non
League Day on the September international weekend as a social media experiment in 2010, to afford fans of Premier League and Championship sides the chance to
experience football at a level they may be otherwise unfamiliar with,
hopefully enabling the curious neophyte to experience and hopefully buy into the sense of belonging and preservation of
traditional values that remains so appealing from the Conference down over.
Paternalist and patronising, though undoubtedly well intentioned Doe’s
motivations may be, it appears that such an apparently organic and supporter
led innovation has had minimal to zero impact on the amateur game in the North
East, where the Northern League (established 1889), the Northern Alliance
(founded in 1890) and the Wearside League (the bairn of the three, coming into
existence in 1892) played their usual full fixture list, including qualifying
round ties in the FA Vase, on September 6th without a single
reference on their websites, or that of any member club in their programmes, to
this alleged mould-breaking, fan-led initiative to reclaim the game. Why is this
the case? A lack of awareness partly, but mainly the status of the amateur game
in the region, allied with traditional Tyneside bloody-mindedness in my
opinion.
Personally
speaking, Non League Day 2014 came at the end of a week when I’d taken in
Whickham 0 Darlington Railway Athletic 0 in Northern League Division 2 on
Tuesday, Whitley Bay A 4 Gosforth Bohemians 1 on the Wednesday in the Northern
Alliance George Dobbins League Cup and attended a monthly meeting of the
Tyneside Amateur League in my role as Chair on the Friday night.
The day
began early for me. My alarm went off at 7.00 and by ten past; I was filling
the water bottles in preparation for our game that morning. I play in goal for
Wallsend Winstons in Division 3 of the North East over 40s League and Saturday
6th September saw us travelling, with a massively weakened squad on
account of work commitments, late season holidays and the understandable
reluctance of those competing in the Great North Run to risk injury the day
before, to Redcar Vets. Yes, that’s right; a 100 mile round trip for a bunch of
blokes in their forties and fifties. Setting off at 8.45, we were parked up an
hour later and soon sat in the changing rooms debating how we were going to
approach the game with so many key personnel missing.
Twenty
minutes into the game and all the planning we’d made and tactics we’d discussed
were rendered useless as we were 2-0 down. Within the opening five minutes, our
centre half slipped on the greasy surface and their centre forward raced
through, before blasting a shot into the roof of the net as I came out. A
quarter of an hour later, the left winger evaded our right back and drove into
the area. I came to the edge of the six yard box to cut down his options, but
to no avail as he laid the ball back and our left back was nowhere near their
attacker who hit a first time shot in off the back post. With no attacking
options, this was effectively game over and it was definitely so for me when,
stooping to collect a loose ball at a corner, one of their players kneed me in
the temple and I hit the deck seeing stars.
I’m
not sure if he meant to hurt me, but he was reckless, as if a potentially
injurious connection is made accidentally, the person responsible, at our level
at any rate, apologises profusely. This bloke didn’t; he slunk away as the rest
of his team appealed for a corner, or so I’m told. I was sat with my back to
the post feeling decidedly queasy. I had to go off and the other keeper came
on. Needless to say, he played a blinder as we put in a massively improved
second half performance, got one back and were unlucky not to find an
equaliser. I didn’t really join in with the team spirit during the rest of the
game I’m sorry to say; while the dizziness and nausea abated, proving I wasn’t
concussed, a thumping headache developed.
The
post-match inquest over pie and peas in Redcar Rugby Club continued without me,
as I took the chance of a lift straight back from one of our lot who only got
the last 15 minutes as a sub and had his daughter’s birthday party to attend. Having
checked the connections on Traveline, I’d half thought of jumping a train at
Redcar East to Darlington, then taking a bus to Shildon, where my Northern
League side Newcastle Benfield were playing, but the connections were tight and
I wasn’t in the best of fettle for such a trek which would get me back to
Newcastle after 8pm via a 3 bus homeward journey, so I half dozed in the car on
the way back. Getting dropped off at Silverlink, I caught the 308 to the Ice
Rink, popping into see my elderly mother in Monkseaton for half an hour, for a
chat and a coffee, then headed up to Hillheads for Whitley Bay versus Celtic
Nation. If I couldn’t see my team on Non League Day, seemed logical to watch
the best game in the area and this one just shaded West Allotment versus
Eccleshall in the FA Vase.
I had
hoped that similar thoughts across the North Tyneside area would have resulted
in a significantly larger crowd than usual, but the spike in Bay’s attendances
occasioned by their hat trick of Vase successes between 2009 and 2011 seems to
be a thing of the past, as just shy of 400, which is about average, were
present. Having seen Benfield pulverise Celtic Nation, I expected something
similar, but was rewarded by a tepid first half that, according to one wag,
will “have people celebrating Premier League Day” next week. Strangely, texts
from Shildon, Dunston v Bishop Auckland and Heaton Stannington v Esh Winning
told similar tales of a dearth of goals and poor games. I felt slightly guilty
about this, though obviously the quality of play was nothing to do with me, as
I’d invited 4 friends along to Bay, who were starting to see their
concentration wander and unsurprisingly headed off to the bar at half time,
while I took another couple of Anadin Extra to calm my banging head.
Thankfully
Whitley Bay upped the ante from the kick off and soon took the lead with a
header by player manager Leon Ryan. With winger Alex Kempster playing a
blinder, Whitley added two further goals and could have had many more as Celtic
Nation were blown away in the second period. Meanwhile, Heaton Stan scored
twice over Esh Winning, Dunston went ahead over Bishops and, most crucially,
Benfield grabbed the lead at Dean Street, which would be a hell of a result. As
relaxed conversation about the potential for further visits to Northern League
games replaced sardonic mutterings about a waste of six quid, I surreptitiously
checked Twitter for updates from Shildon. Nothing at all.
Full
time, still encumbered by a kit bag of dirty clothes and a wave of tiredness
that signalled the end of my headache, I bade farewell to my mates who were off
for a drink to the Rockcliffe and took the 308 back home, basking in the glow
of a warm afternoon, great second half and Benfield’s seeming victory. Only
when an email of the league results some time around 5.30, did I find out
Shildon had scored twice in the last 5 minutes to win the game. Another blow,
this time metaphorical, but just as painful as the one at Redcar.
Back
in the house, I put a load of washing in and spent the evening compiling
Benfield’s programme for Saturday 13th’s game at home to Bridlington
Town in the FA Cup. Too tired to take in the Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick
gig at the Tyneside Irish Centre, without even Match of the Day or The
Football League Show to look forward to, I crashed out early after what
is, for me, a typical Saturday from August to May. At least, checking the
fixtures, I knew I had Team Northumbria v Norton & Stockton Ancients
(Monday), Whitley Bay v RCA (Tuesday) and West Allotment v Bishop Auckland
(Wednesday) to look forward to.
You
see, for some of us, every day is Non League Day and that, allied to reasonably
strong crowds that, ignoring Darlington’s one season dramatic effect on
attendances, have continued to rise steadily over the past decade is another
reason why initiatives such as this will fail to have much impact. Harry
Pearson, famed author of The Far Corner, the definitive book
on football in the region always equated Northern League games to church
attendances; not many here, with those
that are being elderly. While there is a degree of truth in that assertion,
as much as there is a residual respect at an elemental level for established
religion, even among the most zealous of unbelievers, there is also common in
the area, an accepted belief among those match-going or sofa and bar stool Mags
and Mackems who would never set foot in an amateur ground, that the local
football is a source of great regional pride.
All
well and good, but when there are at most 60 supporters at Benfield’s Sam
Smith’s Park on a benign Saturday in mid-October for the visit of Billingham
Synthonia with no Premiership games taking place anywhere, it rankles to know
that The Lochside, The Newton, The Corner House and The Chillingham are packed
with thirsty punters awaiting the tea time kick off between Estonia and
England. These people will not be swayed by initiatives by Non League Day. The
best we followers of the local game can hope for is a surge of interest if our
team does well in a national competition. Benfield versus York City in the FA
Cup 4th qualifying round in 2006 attracted 926; Benfield won the
Northern League double in 2008/2009 with average attendances of 73. That
stinks, but it’s also reality. It won’t stop me being at an average of 100
non-league games per season, but I accept I may be a little on the zealous
side…
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